Read "Saint Ouen" by Marie Van Vorst online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Oh shrive my soul, Belovèd! Yesterday / I placed two candles, straight and slim and fair / Before a virgin's altar, kneeling there / For our united lives and love to pray. / Around me the cathedral's stillness lay; / The mystery of God was everywhere; / Lifting the misty aisles through incensed air / Uprose the threading pillars, dim and grey.
God heard my prayer: and He forgave my need, / If after that day's grace and majesty / I fall and pay my sin with bitter cost; -- / You who have taught me prayer again, and creed, / Bend down in dear forgiveness unto me! / Shrive me, Belovèd! or my soul is lost.